Last week was disconcerting for those that provide cloud-computing services to the federal government, as it appeared that the federal government is reversing course on all the work to date on the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). While this change is very concerning and confusing to ITAPS member companies, we are optimistic that the government will straighten this out as [...]

The IT Alliance for Public Sector (ITAPS) has launched its second year with the same energy and ambition that grew it from ITI’s public sector advocacy startup into the most respected industry voice for information technology (IT) contractors. The past few months have ushered in a 25 percent uptick in membership as we welcomed Adobe, Boeing, Deloitte, Honeywell, Juniper Networks, Lenovo, and Lockheed [...]

With the start of the new Congress, GAO today released their 2015 High Risk List calling attention to agencies and programs that they deem are high risks because of their exposure to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement or which are in need of transformation. Not surprisingly, the Office added “Improving the Management of IT Acquisitions and Operations” to their list this year. The federal information [...]

One year ago ITI launched a new division called the IT Alliance for Public Sector (ITAPS) with the belief that adopting innovative technology across the U.S. public sector will help drive solutions for many of our most critical challenges. Starting with little more than a great idea, we were a startup in the world of policy without any members and zero name recognition. Like a startup we had the [...]

In July when President Obama issued the “Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces” executive order (E.O. 13673), he made it a point to note that the “vast majority” of federal contractors play by the rules and would likely not be impacted by it, and instead said he wanted to crack down on a small number of companies who do repeatedly break the law. It left many in the contracting community scratching their heads [...]

Seven months ago, my colleagues and I joined ITI to create a new division called the IT Alliance for Public Sector, or ITAPS as we are commonly known. This week, leaders from across the industry in both the federal and state, local, and education markets participated in our inaugural executive council meetings to discuss our goals and focus for the future. These meetings were an opportunity to look [...]

While the president’s proposed fiscal year 2015 (FY15) budget takes no dramatic turns for federal IT policy, we here at the IT Alliance for Public Sector (ITAPS) think that it does usher the government toward a matured plan to increase efficiency and productivity using today’s most innovative technologies. While many of the IT priorities can be gleaned from the summary below, it is important that the [...]

Many around Washington have started the dialogue on acquisition reform as the solution to a decades’ long government challenge to leverage the power and efficiency of technology. The White House, Congress, and the Department of Defense have dedicated resources to making acquisition reform a priority in 2014. However, it is important to keep in mind that troubled IT program rollouts, like Healthcare.gov, [...]

There has been a lot of debate in the media recently about who or what is to blame for the Healthcare.gov failure. The saying “success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan” comes to mind. Practically everyone in government and the private sector with a role in Healthcare.gov has been under the media’s microscope. The media’s finger-pointing aside, the fact is that no one individual or office [...]